Long-lived oceanography satellite decommissioned after equipment fails

A U.S.-French satellite doing oceanography surveys for 11 1/2 years has been decommissioned following the loss of its last remaining transmitter, NASA says.

The Jason-1 ocean altimetry satellite, a joint venture of NASA and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, was launched Dec. 7, 2001, and helped create a revolutionary climate data record of global ocean surface topography, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said Wednesday.

In more than 53,500 orbits of the Earth, it mapped sea level, wind speed and wave height to provide insights into ocean circulation, track the rising seas and enable more accurate weather, ocean and climate forecasts, NASA officials said.

"Jason-1 has been a resounding scientific, technical and international success," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "The mission met all of its requirements, performed an extended mission and demonstrated how a long-term climate data record should be established from successively launched satellites."

Contact was lost with Jason-1 on June 21 in what controllers said was a non-recoverable failure of its last remaining transmitter.

The spacecraft's other transmitter had failed in September 2005.